


People Say Run, Don't Walk Away

by Chanter



Series: Alterna-wielder and -kwami Vignettes [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Chloé's A+ interpersonal skills, Gen, akumatization aftermath, episode-related, internal redemption, meteorological references everywhere, original kwami character, ox!Aurore Beauréal, perceptive Chat Noir, personal philosophy, post-Stormy Weather 2, wise Ladybug is wise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 03:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19220998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chanter/pseuds/Chanter
Summary: "There are subtle differences between villains and fierce heroes.  Take it from one who knows what to look for."Chat Noir gets wielder-tapping duty, and with good reason.





	People Say Run, Don't Walk Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EllieMurasaki (AlexSeanchai)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/gifts).



Ladybug and Carapace's profiles have been visible for forty minutes now, half-distinct, on a rooftop three quarters of a block away. Aurore has no idea what they're doing and by this point, even wondering barely feels like a mediocre idea. The hero sharing space on her family's tiny balcony does cast the occasional glance over his shoulder as he's apologizing for the literal drop-in, but none of those looks linger. Aurore eyes him. 

"I'd ask if you were coming to gloat over our last meeting or something," she says, and for just a second there's a note in her voice that washes her insides with a subtle, diffuse kind of rainwater horror when it's heard, "but that isn't your style. You'd have left it to Queen Bee, at least. So, what's up? Are you taking it upon yourself to get me out of the path of someone else Hawkmoth's nailed, or another butterfly? If the answer's yes to either one of those, I'm... not entirely sure how I feel about being treated as a person of mass destruction in potentium. But, er. Thanks?" 

Insulted. Disgusted. A little bit validated. Sick at the bare flicker of hot pride she hasn't yet been able to smother. ... Contagious. Aurore voices none of this, but she's no stranger to her own evolving traits in a mirror; she knows her mouth is cutting a bitter, stubbornly unwavering line straight across her face by now, and that her eyes have gone flinty with a chipped cynicism that was never there before she met Mireille. Paris's cat has proven himself observant more than once; she's reasonably confident he'll get it. 

"Uh," Chat Noir says, as uncertain as she herself was a moment ago and yet somehow entirely different in tone, "nice backhanded compliment, but I'm definitely not planning on gloating over anything. You are right that I'm here for a reason, though. Actually, Ladybug sent me." 

Aurore flinches before she can bully her muscles out of the reaction. "Checking up on the local unmasked villain?" That's sharp, sharper than she realized if not than she intended, and audibly pained. Crap. 

Chat Noir doesn't hiss, but his ears do flatten, and a wince under a mask is still a wince if it's fervent enough. "Not like that," he all but scrambles to clarify, hasty and apologetic and heartfelt all in one. "I mean yes, there is an akuma but no, the issue isn't you and... any of the things you just said." Aurore suspects but can't confirm a second wince, or at least a grimace, in the wake of those words. "For a start, Hawkmoth's already hit his target. For another thing, the victim's in an entirely different arrondissment and seems pretty strongly inclined to stay put for now. For a third... I said victim for a reason a second ago and for a fourth," and on this one his baton twirls in what sure looks like an attempt at his usual cheeky confidence, "last time I checked, I was the actively destructive one in this city." 

"Ha ha." Aurore smirks anyway, almost despite herself. Her estimation of Chat Noir was already fairly high; it climbs another few degrees at his kindness, whether or not she deserves it. 

She's not touching that second use of the word victim overly much. Not that she wouldn't or won't, not that she doesn't badly want to, all of a sudden - is he seriously? - but Chat Noir's not done talking. 

"There is a link to past events," he says, "but--hear me out--it's not something negative. Not any more than my having the power of destruction is negative, if that makes sense. You might not believe me here, I probably wouldn't if you were the one saying what I'm going to say, but the facts of--" he hesitates, uncharacteristically. "Let me put it this way. We don't know just why one akumatized person is more powerful than another, but I'm not the only one who doubts it has absolutely everything to do with the butterfly and nothing at all to do with the victim." 

There he goes with that word again. Aurore squints first one eye at him, then the other, as he falls silent. "Nice... backhanded compliment," she says slowly, uncertainly, wearing her wariness and accumulating disbelief like lowering fog. Chat Noir huffs a laugh out through his nose, but he doesn't deny the truth she's caught him in. 

"Hey, you're the one who said in potentium," he almost chuckles, but if he's going for offhand, which she suddenly doubts, he misses horribly. "You weren't wrong. You might actually be surprised just how right you were. Remind me to thank Hawkmoth for the clue before we vanquish his sorry tail? Granted, he is the one whose akuma has a distressed shopkeeper erecting multilayered medieval-style concrete curtain walls in the middle of the city right now, so thanks might be a little ways down the list, but!" 

Aurore's fairly sure she's looking at him like he's sprouted a set of tentacles. She opens her mouth, bracing for the teardown she knows, intellectually, not to expect from him, but he beats her to speech as he rocks forward onto his toes and back again, and this time, all casual joviality is gone from his voice. 

"Multiple concrete walls," he says carefully, "curtain-style and in increasing layers. I'm good, but even my cata--urk! Ow. My... specialty has its limits. Phew. What I mean is, time for me--us--to recharge between power uses is time we don't have. We need an ally. Preferably one who's already demonstrated they're capable of handling powerful forces with intent. That's why we owe Hawkmoth." His feet shift, near-silently but noticeably, into what she vaguely recognizes as a fencer's opening stance, but his baton isn't in either of his hands. 

"Aurore Beauréal," Chat Noir says, and she doesn't think she's ever heard him speak so quietly, never mind so formally before, bookend swaths of lost memories or not, "this--" he slides a small, hexagonal box from his sleeve in one smooth motion and doesn't miss a beat "--is the Miraculous of the ox. It grants its wielder the power of channeled strength. I am entrusting it to you, as a request for assistance, on behalf of myself, Ladybug, Carapace, and the citizens of Paris overall. You must use it only for good, and when the mission is over, you must return the Miraculous to me. For what it's worth," he adds, and just like that his formality's dropped in favor of something audibly warmer, "and if it helps with the decision at all, I haven't met a one hit wonder hero yet." 

Oh. That's what he's been driving at. 

Once a villain, always a-- She's staring at him like he's the doom at the center of a descending funnel cloud, up close and personal and complete with an encroaching sense of unreality. This has to be a joke. If he hasn't got a camera up his sleeve, then-- 

"You can't tell me Queen Bee calling you a villain made you happy," he says, quieter still and even more serious, if that's possible, "considering what Hawkmoth pulled on you as a result, and seeing as your first visit from a little purple butterfly had its roots in one truly nasty case of injustice, it pretty logically follows..." He extends the box a further centimeter toward her. "Come on. There are subtle but distinct differences between villains and fierce heroes. Take it from one who knows what to look for. Take it from one who'd better, given what I throw around." 

Lightning hits her somewhere near the belly. Slowly. He said hero. He said hero, and outside of an active fight, sneering is not his style. He said fierce hero. He said handling powerful forces. He just compared her to himself - holy crap, Beauréal, how do you rate that? He said ally. He said strength. 

Paris's own ethical destroyer cat did not use the word villain as a descriptor for her even once, thank you very much for nothing whatsoever, Chloé Queen Bee brat Bourgeois. 

I'm not just what's left after the hurricane hits, she thinks. I am the surviving, solid foundation upon which cities are rebuilt. 

"Chat Noir!" She doesn't intend the thundercrack that is her voice at first, and she has no visual confirmation but she'd swear he grins behind his mask over it instead of flinching. Her personal estimation of his character climbs again, barometer slow and just as steady. "I accept. Give me about a minute, and I'll meet you on the rooftop you and the other two are using as a staging area over there. And when I do?" She straightens, looks him in the eye and shows her teeth in what might have been nothing more than a smile, once upon a time. 

Hell, even better: I am the battered, usable patchwork with which cities are rebuilt. 

"Call me Stormwrack." 

Chat Noir is so definitely grinning as he hands the box over and politely turns his back. Aurore can practically feel it. Oh, this is going to be good. Literally, even, which is that much better. 

The light, as she lifts the box's lid, is the exact, opaque silvery shade of torrential rain sheeting down a windowpane. When it fades, a single, jeweled ear cuff gleams up at her from the interior. "Hello there," says a wingless, levitating, horn-bearing creature colored nearly equally in pewter ocean grey and pristine snowfall white, easily and only three times the size of any butterfly Aurore's ever seen. "My name is Fallos."

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is unlikely ever to be canon, but the idea of sharp-edged hero Aurore was just too good not to write. Yes, the title is a song lyric. No, the rest of that song, save the general implied ferocity, does not apply to Aurore here! And Aurore's kwami's name is a play off of Boukephalos.


End file.
